Arsenic in the Drinking Water Is Not a Good Thing

December 05 / January 06 By: Leslie Britt Volume 3 Number 6

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Arsenic isn't what most of us would be happy to see on a list of toxins in our local water system. But many people in the United States, particularly in the American West, do have elevated levels of arsenic in their drinking water. In fact, it is estimated that arsenic concentrations higher than 10 parts per billion—€”that's roughly the equivalent of 10 drops of arsenic in a small, backyard swimming pool that holds about 10,000 gallons of water—€”are present in the tap water of over 12 million Americans.

The Environmental Protection Agency's new drinking water standard for arsenic reduces the maximum contaminant level from the previous standard of 50 parts per billion to a new low of 10 parts per billion. The regulation will go into effect in January 2006 and is designed to reduce the incidence of bladder and lung cancers caused by exposure to arsenic.

Most big cities and municipalities will have little to no trouble meeting the new arsenic standards. The problem lies with rural communities that don't have the money or the appropriate treatment infrastructure to comply with the new arsenic level requirements. Malcolm Siegel, Sandia's arsenic treatment program leader, says implementing an effective arsenic removal system in a rural community may increase the cost of water for residents by two to three times their current rate.

To address this problem, scientists and researchers at Sandia have been working to develop and test innovative, cost-effective techniques to remove arsenic from drinking water.

The research is sponsored by the Arsenic Water Technology Partnership, a consortium of Sandia; the Awwa Research Foundation (AwwaRF); and WERC, a consortium for environmental education and technology development. Senator Pete Domenici, R-N.M., secured the funding for the project through the Department of Energy. The partnership has produced three successful arsenic removal demonstrations in New Mexico this year—€”the first in Socorro, another at the Desert Sands utility in Anthony and most recently in Rio Rancho, a growing suburb of Albuquerque.

The demonstrations seek to provide answers to practical questions communities may have related to arsenic removal technologies: which methods are most effective and why, how often does adsorption material need to be changed, and so on. The latest pilot demonstration in Rio Rancho will obtain arsenic removal performance data for six different adsorptive materials and two reverse osmosis units for a period of three to nine months. The performance data obtained in the test will be combined with data from a previous pilot test using conventional technologies at the same well site to provide information useful to a large number of communities.